Chapter 7

Amelia

I eyed the moose standing between my brother’s battered truck and me. The moose in question, a gangly female yearling, stared back at me. Its brown fur looked soft, its dark eyes wide and curious. The moose looked so at ease, I might’ve been tempted to carry on and walk straight past it, but I knew better. Moose were near-sighted. I figured I looked like a blurry shape at this distance. If I were lucky, the moose would bolt in the opposite direction when I got close enough, but that was no guarantee. More people were injured by moose every year in Alaska than by bears. Moose weren’t predatory, but they startled easy. You never knew if they’d run off or run at you, so it was best to steer clear.

I leaned against the deck railing and waited. A squirrel peered over at me from its perch on the railing a few feet away. I’d scattered sunflower seeds on the ground nearby this morning. The squirrel flicked its eyes from me to the ground before bursting into chatter and leaping to the ground. The chatter galvanized the moose yearling, and she jogged into the trees.

I gave it a few more minutes before stepping off the porch and walking to Quinn’s truck. My older brother Quinn was one of my favorite people. I figured he might be worried about me, but he’d give me the space I needed. His cabin was roughly a half hour outside of Willow Brook. He’d purchased it about a year ago when it came up for sale. He had no intention of living here, but he’d wanted a place nearby for when he visited with his wife Lacey. Only a few months ago, Lacey had given birth to their first daughter. They’d named her after our mother, Sarah. I adored Quinn and had been beyond happy when he finally saw the light of day and admitted he was in love with Lacey.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Sarah’s birth had been the trigger that snapped me out of my stupidity over Earl. I’d gone to Diamond Creek where Quinn and Lacey lived to meet baby Sarah. I’d left the next day wondering if I’d ever get lucky enough to find something like what they had. Quinn loved Lacey down to her bones—headstrong, willful, tomboy Lacey. I wanted someone to love me like that.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t known there wasn’t much passion between Earl and me. I’d told Cade the truth when I said I thought Earl was the best chance I had. Because it had sure as hell seemed like it. Less than twenty-four hours with Cade had been a brutally painful reminder of what I’d once had.

I climbed into the beater truck Quinn had left parked here. Several attempts to get the engine to turn over failed. I leaned my head against the seat with a sigh. I hadn’t been thinking clearly when I’d asked Cade to drop me off here yesterday. All I’d known was I needed to get the hell away from him before I did or said anything else stupid. I also hadn’t been ready to face anyone in Willow Brook. Yet, here I was now with no phone and no way to go anywhere. Quinn and Lacey had plenty of food here, but I had quickly discovered being alone with my thoughts with next to nothing to distract me wasn’t helping. At all.

I tossed and turned last night, my dreams a messy mix of fury and arousal. I’d woken in the midst of a heated dream, so hot it made me blush. Of course, the only man I ever dreamt about like that was Cade. Even worse, the dream was more vivid than any I’d had in years because I’d seen him. He’d gone from being a ghost of my past to a living, breathing raw manifestation of masculinity in the here and now.

With a muttered cruse, I leapt back out of the truck, only to find the curious yearling had returned and was nibbling on the bushes by the front porch. I put my hands on my hips and sighed. “Dammit! Moose, go find some food somewhere else,” I called.

The yearling paused in its nibbling, its ear flicking in my direction for a second before it resumed eating. Another squirrel dashed past me on the stone walkway leading up to the cabin, racing to the scattered sunflower seeds and right under the feet of the yearling. I looked up at the cabin. It was a cute little place. The home was two stories in a perfect square with an angled roof to let the snow slide off in winter. Quinn had hired me to replace the roof last year, and I’d installed pretty blue steel roofing.

I glanced down at my t-shirt. I was still attired in Cade’s t-shirt and the pair of jeans I’d grabbed at the department store by the hotel yesterday morning. With a sigh, I spun back to lean against the truck. The moose was happily chomping away on the bushes, so unless I felt inclined to chase it off, I’d have to wait it out.

I wished I hadn’t been so stupid as to throw my phone away and, even worse, so stupid as to insist Cade drop me off here. I scanned the small clearing in front of the cabin, my eyes landing on the woodpile with an axe resting on the chopping stump. It was a good distance away from the moose. Fine. I’d chop some wood. It was the least I could do for Quinn and Lacey hosting me when they didn’t even know I was here.

Chopping wood was so satisfying. Every swing of the axe, every thwack of it as it collided with the wood gave release to my pent up messy emotions. I must’ve been at it a good half hour when I heard the low rumble of an engine coming down the winding driveway. I’d finally managed to knock my mind off its loop of Cade, but it instantly swung back to him. No one else knew I was here.

With my pulse off to the races and my belly somersaulting, I looked over my shoulder to see his black truck rolling to a slow stop. I looked away and swung the axe again.